I pesci sacri

The painting is signed “G. de Chirico” in the lower right-hand corner. Ranking among the best replicas of one of the artist’s most celebrated metaphysical masterpieces, his famous “Sacred Fish”, first published in 1919 in a monograph for the review Valori Plastici. The original belonged to the review’s editor and founder of the eponymous movement, Mario Broglio, who presented it at an exhibition by the group in 1921 in Germany. The first replica was painted by the artist following a request by Eluard and Breton.
The painting shown here is another replica, and can be dated to the 1930s. It re-proposes the same arrangement of browns and bronzes of the original, animated by a frontal light that appears to shine into the image, coating the objects and lengthening their dark shadows. On a panel that cuts obliquely through the centre of the composition, reminiscent of a kind of altar, are two fish with silver scales that sparkle against the fiery shade of their rectangular container; to the right hangs a dark curtain and on the left stands a vase (or candlestick?) surmounted by a star-shaped flower.
The foreground is occupied by overlapping polyhedrons painted in vivid colours which cast their shadows onto the fish receptacle. These form an inverted cross, recalling their “sacred” attribute. The work is rich in religious symbolism. The candle, the strange vase and the play of shadows also contribute to the suggestive atmosphere.
The candle, the geometric elements and tenuous light that pervade the image seem to allude to a hidden symbolic meaning in addition to the already rich and dense Christian iconology of the fish.